The driving genre is a wild card as both arcade and simulators dominate this genre. At any given time an arcade racer and sweep the industry away or a top, not simulator can take over later in the year. The racing genre is one of the most competitive out there.
Wreckfest
Fun. That’s this year’s main word for the racing genre. Wreckfest came out on top by not only delivering the goods that racing fans want such as superb visuals, great physics, and well-made cars, but the game doesn’t’ take itself seriously and is pure fun. Smash, crash, and blast your way through opponents on and off the track. Can’t get more fun than that in this genre.
This was a decent year for racers as the two behemoths went toe-to-toe for the first time in years. Racers from nearly every series came out this year, but somehow didn’t quite make the splash we had hoped.
Forza Horizon 4
It doesn’t really get much better than Forza, and somehow, the game seems to just improve year after year and avoid the dreaded sequelitis. The visuals are out of this world, the game is actually fun, and the amount of cars to drive is insane. Throw that into an over the top open world and you can’t go wrong
This was a decent year for racers as the two behemoths went toe-to-toe for the first time in years. Racers from nearly every series came out this year, but somehow didn’t quite make the splash we had hoped.
Forza Motorsport 7
The best racer is all about passion for the sport, and that’s whether it’s an arcade or simulator racer. Forza 7 put so much love and time into their cars, tracks, physics, and graphics that you almost felt it pass through the controller and into you. While all the runner-ups were well made and fun, you just didn’t quite feel the passion that Turn 10 has for motorsports.
What makes a good driving game? The best visuals, physics, modes, and fun cars to drive. It is all like a synchronized dance and all has to flow together.
Criterion are geniuses for a reason. The masterminds behind the Burnout franchise, EA game them the keys to Need for Speed and have made two great games already. Most Wanted is just slick, fast, and streamlined. The game is so much fun that you will never feel bored. There are a lot of fun modes and Autolog can’t be topped. The game also looks fantastic on Vita and PC. Transformed came in a close second, but just doesn’t feel as slick as Most Wanted.
This was a year with a lot of driving games and a few didn’t make it on the list. A great driving game has a wide variety of cars, great physics and handling (especially if it’s a simulator), great tracks, and a fun multiplayer component. What sets the best apart from the rest? Perfecting or changing something in the genre that none of the others did. Most racing games tend to stick to what’s safe, but the best reaches out just a little bit further.
What sets DiRT 3 apart this year was the fact that it improved on itself and added a lot of new things, but also was a solid racing game with great physics and cars. This was a close tie against Forza 4, but Forza didn’t improve enough on itself like DiRT 3 did. With the addition of Gymkhana, a whole new presentation style, revamped rep system, and tons of new cars DiRT 3 just new what makes a good racing game. With the addition of some DirectX 11 effects on PC, it also is one of the best looking.
The Driver series has been pretty rocky ever since the first game came out in 1998. The PS1 classic was one of a kind but sparked some bad to average sequels. San Francisco is the comeback for the series and it is very and strong will please fans of the original. The story is kind of weird and takes a supernatural spin with the lead guy (John Tanner) getting into an accident and falling into a coma after wanted criminal Jericho smashes into his car. Tanner can now leave his body and float around the city entering any car he wants and this is what the game is wrapped around.
Most of the game consists of various side missions such as dares, speed chases, races, protecting vehicles, etc. You can leave the car on the fly and move around to any car and smash into the car you need to take down. This can also be used in races to slow opponents down so you can win, but don’t consider this cheating since most of the races are very challenging. Sometimes you have to swap between two cars constantly and keep them in 1st and 2nd place which is pretty exhilarating. Or you can just enter cars in oncoming traffic and smash them up to win the race. This can also be done on other various missions and it’s great fun and never really gets old to take a big rig and smash it into cars to take them out.
However, this all gets old very fast because there are 50+ to finish and as you unlock more of the city you get more side missions to complete. Dares consist of doing certain things like drifts, speed limits, jumps, etc. The reason for completing these is willpower which you can use to buy cars and new garages to unlock more cars. The selection of cars is awesome with pretty much every popular car you can think of. They even added the DeLorean and if you hit 88 Mph you get willpower! Driving in first-person view looks great and the car handles well drifting, jumping, and doing crazy stunts is great fun the city is huge and you really won’t get bored here during the first half of the game. After the last half picks up you will be more engaged in the interesting story and probably stop with the side missions because they just repeat forever almost.
On another note, the main missions are really interesting and towards the end of the game you really get to use your supernatural powers, and overall the main missions have more diversity than the side ones. The voice acting is great and the characters are people you actually get interested in because of the drama the story brings you through. While the whole story is hokey you still get a kick out of being able to veer away from the realistic type of game while keeping it feeling pretty real with awesome licensed cars. You can boost in these cars and unlock a thrill cam, but the boost feels useless at low speeds because it doesn’t boost you at all and you can’t really use it to boost out of a spin.
Multiplayer is pretty fun, but overall you will get sick of the game due to the constantly repeated missions and there’s only so much you can do with a car. I highly recommend this to anyone into cars, action, or just plain old arcade-style racers. If you can stomach the repetitive side missions, or if that’s just what you like, then you will find a good 25+ hour game here with the huge city of Frisco ready to explore.
Driving games are all about the cars whether it’s a simulator or arcade racer. A good driving game has responsive controls, slick cars, fun tracks, and customization options that suit the game.
While it has its flaws and was overhyped there’s no denying the attention to detail in GT5. With over 500 cars, tons of real-world tracks detailed to every crack, excellent tuning options, and a slick interface what’s there not to like? With the new special events, GT5 is oozing with awesome content for car lovers. So flaws aside it’s the attention to detail that won this over the rest.
The sandbox or “open-ended gameplay” genre is actually the newest genre known to video games with a good seven years under its belt, but not that many games have really proven the genre worthy. With Grand Theft Auto III being the daddy of this genre many games were failed mock-ups of GTA, many weren’t even related, but still didn’t do the genre justice. Saint’s Row tried to push the genre once again a few years ago and didn’t do such a great job, and was just shoved off as another GTA clone. Now that Saint’s Row 2 has been out for a while people kind of just stopped with blank expressions, while some roared and cheered with joy. Saints 2 really does push the genre and is a clear opponent against Grand Theft Auto IV, but I’m not going to sit here and compare the two since Saints 2 deserves a separate look.
The first thing you do when you enter the game is to create your own character, and this is what really sets the game apart from others in the genre. You wake up from your coma in a jail hospital and bam you’re in there changing your sex, picking your taunts (some are very vulgar), rearranging your face (you can do that in that outside of this too), picking a hair, and even your voice. The options are deep and riddled with lots of ways to make your character unique and stand out from others online. Once you get out of this mode you are introduced to an easy-to-use tutorial that will show you how to control your character and I have to admit; the controls are wonderful. I never got frustrated with them and they are just so intuitive and easy to understand and remember. You start out with some melee training then you pick up a pistol and you discover you can zoom in via over the shoulder, jump around, and it all just feels nice and smooth. Once you hop into a car this doesn’t change one bit since cars will turn on a dime and have the perfect feel to them (all 40 or so of them) and this makes driving around the city of Stilwater very pleasant.
The bulk of the game is about rivaling gangs throughout the story and I have to admit the story is riveting, gruesome, and very entertaining and never falters once. You see, since you were knocked out for two weeks all the gangs who hated you took their territory back, and now you must gather your old friends, start the 3rd Street Saints up again and build your hideout up. In this hideout, you can get your cash from the stores you purchased, change your gang’s style (like the ’80s, hip-hop, pimps & hos that sort of things), change your weapon layout, and pimp out your crib. All of these are just nice subtle touches that THQ didn’t really have to do, but they went that extra mile anyway.
Between these story missions, you can go to different stores and buy food (health), jewelry or clothes to increase your respect, go to plastic surgeons to redo something on your character, buy cars, buy weapons, and in the second half of the game: Play side missions.
These side missions are actually a blast and two I will talk about are Fuzz and Septic Avenger. Most of the side missions are scattered throughout your map (Stilwater is HUGE by the way) and they consist of events such as racing, celebrity protection, helicopter attack missions, etc. All of these missions earn you respect so you can play story missions (each story mission takes one piece of your respect bar). Each mission gives you a time limit and a certain objective to complete, while some are way others are a pain in the @SS and can leave you screaming in frustration. Fuzz is a cop reality show where you drive around to designated crimes and kill them according to what your cameraman says. Sometimes you’ll have to use a chainsaw (camera angle a la Gears of War), use satchel charges on skateboarders, etc. Fuzz is an addictive (like most missions) way to fill your respect bar and leaves many laughs as well (thanks to the amazing dialog THQ wrote for the game). Septic Avenger has you driving a septic truck (yeah a poop truck) spraying fecal matter all over buildings to depreciate the value for certain clients. As you spray the buildings a red meter will drop and a cash amount will pop upbringing that much is closer to your depreciation amount.
There are also some other smaller side missions like the taxi missions, hostage diversion in which you hijack a car and any passengers can be driven crazy (literally) until a ransom is given. You also have a streaker mission since you CAN walk around naked (blurred naughty bits of course) and streak in front of people for cash.
If you think the side missions sound fun don’t forget those story missions. The game has amazing voice acting and clever dialog so it’ll keep you wanting more and make you come back to see which gang member you’re going to kill next. Not one mission is identical and you are blessed with a nonrepetitive mission-based game that gives you many different places, and ways to kill people throughout the entire game.
Now when it comes to nitpicking the game apart the graphics aren’t up to par with most next-gen games (thanks to a lot of Gears of War 2!), and there are serious slowdown problems where the FPS will drop into the single digits sometimes, there are collision detection and clipping issues, some funky physic problems, but nothing that sandbox games haven’t encountered before. The game is highly playable and you shouldn’t let these small problems bother you. The last thing I need to mention is the fact that the game is gruesome and is more ballsy than GTA ever was. There are complete torture scenes, foul language, and running around naked a la Sims style is pretty far out there. The game is just hard-hitting and in your face and that’s exactly what a mature-rated sandbox game needs.
OK, Far Cry was in the day was a great technical feat and that’s pretty much it. Far Cry had a lot of AI problems with enemies being able to see your miles away, you needed a monster computer to run it, it had almost no story, and was pretty repetitive. Unfortunately, Far Cry 2 follows all these trends again, but with better graphics, a setting in Africa, an even more confusing story, a super confusing level editor, and the same bland boring huge open world. Now I’m not saying Far Cry 2 is bad I’m just saying it needs more filling because there is way too much crust on this one.
The game starts out great with you in the back of a car driving to the guerrilla’s headquarters. Once you get through the tutorial you’re thrown into the beautiful yet empty world trying to find “The Jackal” who is feeding both rival gangs guns and fuel (APR and UFLL). You can work on either side since you need either or to get to The Jackal. For starters, the game has lots and lots of guns and you can upgrade them by using diamonds (finding diamond cases and/or completing missions) you can buy the weapons for infinite ammo in your safe rooms, and you can buy manuals that increase accuracy, reliability, etc. You can also buy equipment that will let you hold more ammo, more health, more stim-paks, etc. There are lots here and everything is fairly priced, but you earn diamonds so slowly that it takes forever to get enough.
When you’re actually shooting the guns feels great, but another problem carried over from the first one is that these guys never die. You’ll pump a whole clip in these guys and sometimes they’ll still be standing. Sometimes your gun will jam and you have to mash X to get it unstuck and if you’re really unlucky you’re the whole gun will break and then you’re SOL. Getting the reliability upgrades fixes this and swapping out weapons from fallen foes helps this a lot. Far Cry 2 also has a “buddy system” which is acquired by completing missions, and these so-called buddies can save you in battle (if you run out of health…think of it as an extra life), they can help make missions easier by offering alternatives. This is a great system and is probably the only great gameplay idea in Far Cry 2 that isn’t boring or doesn’t piss you off. When you do get low on health you can pry bullets out of yourself, wrap yourself in bandages, and even poke yourself with magic needles. You can refill these at health boxes in random areas or in one of your safe houses. You unlock new safe houses by killing all guards in the area and bam there you go.
The next gameplay element that is from the first game and was bizarrely stripped down is the vehicles you drive. There are only maybe five in the whole game and those are a Jeep, a car, an assault truck, and a couple of boats. When your vehicle gets banged up and starts smoking you can hop out and repair it to new which is great, but even if the car starts smoking a little bit it runs very slowly…LAME. Now to get to the most annoying part of the game…the constant backtracking. I understand this is an open-world game (I love sandbox games don’t get me wrong), but Far Cry 2 fails at this. First, off the map they give you is horrible since it’s a little piece of paper you hold (next to your GPS) and all the dots look like blobs so the legend is useless. You’ll travel to missions on one side of the map finish them then has to navigate all the way back to town. You can’t really go off the trails since there are so many mountains, rocks, and trees blocking your path unless you run on foot.
Then this is where the meat of annoyance comes in; there’s nothing in between all of this driving around! Maybe here and there you’ll see an animal, but all you get are the same thugs coming after you in their vehicles from the guard posts plastered all along the trails. That is really ALL there is between driving from mission to mission. The missions are exactly the same, maybe you’ll have to save a friend (or shoot him/her), but essentially it’s all the same.
The malaria effect was useless and made things even more annoying. Every so often you’ll have to take a malaria pill and if you run out you have to go to the ends of the Earth (ok Africa!) to get more or you die. Essentially this makes the game boring and I got a headache every time I played this. Now if you like sandbox games where there is hardly a story, and you just drive around killing random thugs then go ahead and have at it. Now, this brings me to the level editor which is deep, but there’s no tutorial and it is NOT user-friendly. Lastly, the only exciting thing is multiplayer. The best part of Far Cry 2 is the graphics; the game is gorgeous with free-flowing grass, everything burns, trees break when under fire, and the lighting is beautiful it just all looks so good, but the gameplay is just not there. Sorry Ubisoft maybe Far Cry 3 will fix all of these issues.
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